Soul Nudges #11 ‘Be Wakeful’

The great tragedy of life lies not in how much we suffer, but in how much we miss. Human beings are born asleep, live asleep and die asleep…We have children asleep, raise children asleep, handle big business deals asleep and enter government office asleep.

We never wake up. This is what spirituality is about: waking up.

– Anthony de Mello

In this moment how awake are you? I mean, did you really take in what you’ve just read?

Maybe go back for a moment and read the above words of de Mello again, while being more wakeful and more attentive…

Soulfulness is about waking up; it is about doing one thing at a time and really be there for it. It is about the deliberate act of getting out of your sleepwalking patterns. Sleepwalking is a way to cope with the speed of life, the pressure, lots of decisions and multitasking. Sleepwalking is playing into the need to sometimes be on autopilot and just do, do, do. It means to sometimes multitask mindlessly to get through and push through, and that is okay. It is part of life, isn’t it?

But, I do wonder how we can help each other to sometimes just be deliberately wakeful in a specific moment? To experience how a specific event touches you, or a sunset or a kind word from somebody, a business deal or a hug.

I bumped into somebody this morning who told me that her husband defended his PhD successfully last week after five years of studies and pressure – and how they didn’t even stop to celebrate because there is so much to DO. Most of us can identify with that. Soulfulness is about waking up!

To be wakeful, might be to stop once a week and scan your core experience, the core of what you sense or your core thought and simply be with it. It is about being wakeful to what is important to you. More deliberate wakeful moments will help you to find more meaning and to be more truthful about your vulnerabilities. And isn’t it important in life and leadership to be deliberately wakeful?